Volkswagen sees opportunities to put its factories around the world back to work in the coming weeks. Production sites in Europe are starting to kick off, followed by those in the US, South Africa and Latin America.
In various parts of the world, opportunities are being explored to open up parts of the industry again despite the coronavirus. This is also the case for car production. In Europe, Volkswagen sees the opportunity to resume production next week (from April 20) at its plants in Zwickau (Germany) and Bratislava (Slovakia). The manufacturer announces this in a statement. A week later, on the week of April 27, Volkswagen resumes production at the other factories in Germany, Portugal, Spain and Russia. From that week, smoke must also come out of the chimney in the factories in the United States. The plants in South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico will restart in early May.
Of course, a restart is only possible if there is strong preparation for a new working method to prevent the factories from turning into new sources of the virus. “The health of our employees is a top priority,” explains Volkswagens production manager Andreas Tostmann. “We provide a safe working environment with the highest level of health protection, through a hundred safety measures.”
Naturally, production will not immediately be able to run at full speed again. Everything is geared to the availability of parts and to the local measures surrounding the virus. Production in China has been going on for a while and Volkswagen says it is drawing lessons from the experience in the factories there. The virus has reportedly remained outside the door of Chinese factories.